Game Programming Using Unity 3D Lesson 1: Introduction To Unity.

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Game Programming Using Unity 3D

Lesson 1: Introduction To Unity

Ferdinand Joseph Fernandez

Chief Technological Officer, Dreamlords Digital Inc.
Admin and Co-founder, Unity Philippines Users Group
September 2011

This document except code snippets is licensed with

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported

All code snippets are licensed under CC0 (public domain)

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What Is Unity 3D Information

Unity Pro comes with all
Unity 3d is a complete authoring solution to create video-games, or the “bells and whistles”
other interactive content (training simulations, architectural that the free version
doesn't have, like post-processing
visualizations, etc.) created by the company known as Unity effects, real-time shadows, video
Technologies. playback, streaming assets
(background loading), the ability to
Unity is available for indie developers, hobbyists, and students with a load C/C++ plugins, and more.
free version. The free version is usable for commercial purposes with However, the license comes with a
no upfront costs or royalty fees whatsoever. Unity is also available hefty cost of USD 1,500.00 per
with a paid premium version, designated “Unity Pro”, meant for “AAA” programmer in your team.
style, high quality games such as those found in console games. Find out more on
http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses
Unity has 500,000+ registered users worldwide, including companies
That being said, you can just as well
such as Cartoon Network, Coca-Cola, Disney, Electronic Arts, create a fun and enjoyable game
Microsoft, NASA, the US Army, Warner Bros. and more. without needing the Pro features.

Illustration 1: Unity comes with an IDE for developing games visually, in a rapid-
prototyping approach.

Where To Get Unity 3D

The latest version of Unity is always available at http://unity3d.com/unity/download/. When you have
Unity installed and are connected to the Internet, it will always notify you at startup when a new
version is available.
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Opening a Unity Project

Start Unity. As of version 3.4, by default it will open the
sample project “Angry Bots”.
You may be greeted with the “Welcome To Unity”
Welcome Screen. We won't be needing this, so uncheck
“Show at Startup” at its lower-right corner and close that
window.
We don't want Unity to open a project immediately upon
startup, so we change that in the preferences.
Go to the preferences window by choosing it from Edit >
Preferences...

Then check “Show Project Wizard at Startup”.

After checking it, close the Preferences Window. Now, whenever you start Unity, it will open a dialog
window to let you choose which project you want opened.
Now we'll open the Lesson 1 project. If you haven't downloaded the LessonAssets zip file, do so now.
(Can be found at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25260770/UnityLessons/index.htm). It contains
all the necessary files we'll be needing for all the lessons. Inside that zip file is the Lesson 1 folder
that we need to open.
There are two ways to open a Unity project.
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Opening a project within Unity

From the top menu bar, choose File > Open Project... This will open the Project Wizard Dialog.
Choose the “Open Other...” button and locate the Lesson 1 project within your system. Just choose
the root folder of the project, not a file within the project. After clicking the OK button, Unity will
momentarily close and open your selected project. The next time you open Unity, your recently
opened projects will be listed out so you can easily open them.

Opening a project from your OS

Open Windows Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac). Go to the Unity project you want opened. Inside
should be at least two folders named “Assets” and “Library”. Go inside “Assets”. If you are opening
the Lesson 1 project, you should see a file named “MainScene.unity”. Simply double-click this file
and Unity will launch with this project opened.
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Familiarizing Yourself With The Unity Editor GUI

After opening the Lesson 1 project, your screen should look familiar with the picture below.

If your Unity Editor's window title says Untitled, make sure to open the MainScene file from the tab
that says “Project”. Double-click that file.

Now to ensure the layout of your Unity Editor is the same with the rest of this lesson, change your
layout by choosing Window > Layouts > Tall in the top menu.
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The Unity Editor comprises of five main areas:

1. Scene View: This shows a view of your 3d world. In Unity, the 3d world is called a “scene”.
2. Hierarchy View: This shows a list of all the objects in your scene. In Unity, objects are called
“game objects”.
3. Inspector View: This shows detailed information about the currently selected game object.
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4. Project View: This shows all the resources that your project can make use of. This ranges
from source code to 3d objects, images, sounds, fonts, and other files.
5. Toolbar: Various other buttons to interact with your project.

Moving around your scene

First off, you need to be familiar with the controls.
Move your mouse cursor to the Scene View. Hold the middle mouse button and move the mouse.
This will move the camera. Moving the camera is also known as “panning” the camera.
Hold Alt and the left mouse button, then move the mouse. This rotates the camera.
To zoom in and out, you have two options: use the mouse wheel, or hold Alt and the right mouse
button then move the mouse.
Practice using these controls until you get comfortable with them.

Focusing On An Object
In your Hierarchy View, find the object named “Simple Cylinder” and click on it. Now move your
mouse cursor to the Scene View. Press F on your keyboard. This will center the camera on the
selected object.
While that object is centered, rotating the camera will rotate around that object. Once you pan the
camera though, the object won't be centered anymore.

Moving Around Flythrough Style

An alternative way to navigate the Scene is to use WASD style movement. Move your mouse cursor
to the Scene View. Hold the right mouse button. Use the W and S to move forward and backward.
Use A and D to move left and right. Use Q and E to move up and down. Moving the mouse while the
right mouse button is held will rotate the camera.

Introduction To Game Objects

In Unity, everything you see in the 3d world is a game object. This includes the player, enemies,
floors, walls, lights, and even the buttons of your game.
The place where you put game objects is called a scene. You can have multiple scenes in your
game, for example, one to hold the main menu, and several others for the levels or stages of your
game.

Creating Game Objects

In the top menu, choose GameObject > Create Other > Cube. This will create a default cube at the
center of your vision in the Scene View. You'll also find in that menu other default objects that you can
create, but we'll concentrate on the cube for now.
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Moving Game Objects

Click on your created cube in the Scene View. Center on it with F. You'll see three colored arrows on
your cube. If not, press W on your keyboard, or click on the Move Tool in the upper-left of the screen.

The three arrows are handles to let you move the cube. The red arrow lets you move the cube left
and right. The green arrow lets you move the cube up and down. And the blue arrow lets you move
the cube forward and backward.
Simply drag these arrows to move your cube Distance in
back-and-forth in that direction. Unity is not
measured in
To move the cube freely in any direction, drag any particular unit of
from the white box located at the center of these measurement, but by
default, the physics engine
three arrows. assumes the distances are
measured in meters.
When you move your game object, look at the
Inspector View. You'll see there the numerical
values that denote the x, y, and z position of the
game object.
Those are text boxes, so you can type the exact value you want. You can also cut/copy/paste them.

Illustration 5: The Inspector shows the x, y, and z position of your selected

game object, among other things.

You can also edit the x, y, and z values with your mouse. Just move your mouse on the label and then
drag.

Rotating Game Objects

Rotating game objects work the same. Click on your cube to ensure the Scene View can accept
keyboard commands, then press E. You can also just click on the Rotate Tool in the toolbar.
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You'll see the three arrows change to three arcs of the same colors. The idea is the same: the three
arcs let you rotate the game object in the three axes, x, y, and z.
The white outer circle lets you rotate the game object based on the
view. Try it out and see.
You'll find the Inspector also lists out the rotation values of your game
object. This is in Euler angles. Same as before, you can type exact
values or drag the labels to edit them.

Scaling Game Objects

Lastly, you can scale game objects to do resizing, enlarging,

Illustration 7: The Scale

Tool selected.
squashing, flattening and the like.
Scaling uses three arrows ending with cubes instead of
arrowheads. Use the Scale Tool button, or press R on your
keyboard to activate the Scale Tool.
Like before, simply drag back and forth to resize in that direction.
Drag the white cube at the center to resize proportionally in all
dimensions.

World Space and Local Space

Now that you know how to rotate, you need to learn something about spaces.
When you rotate an object, you are changing where its facing. You could say its “forward” direction is
now changed to where you have pointed it.
So, for example, let's say you rotated a game object 45 degrees in the y-axis, its now pointing
diagonally. If you want that object to move forward with respect to where its facing now, you are said
to be moving it in its local space, or local axis.
If you want to do such a thing, make sure you set Unity to work in local space. You can do this by
clicking on the corresponding button in the upper left area of the Unity GUI:
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This will toggle between Global and Local. You can also do this by pressing X on your keyboard.

Snapping
You can make movement, rotation, or scaling done in precise increments by holding Ctrl while
moving/rotating/scaling.

Selecting Multiple Game Objects

Hold Shift or Ctrl when selecting a new game object in the
Scene View to add it to your selection. You can then
move/rotate/scale them simultaneously.
In the Hierarchy View, hold Ctrl and click a game object's name
to selectively add or remove it from your selection.
Hold Shift, and click a game object's name to select multiple
game objects at once.

Illustration 11: Having multiple cubes

selected.
Renaming Game Objects
There are two ways to change the names of your Game Objects.

Renaming From Hierarchy

Click on the game object's name in the Hierarchy then press F2 (on Windows), or Enter (on Mac), to
be able to change the name. Press Enter to confirm.
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Renaming From Inspector

Select your game object, then go to the Inspector. At the top, you can change the name by clicking on
it. Press Enter to confirm.
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Parenting Game Objects

Parenting is Unity's process of grouping many game objects together.
1. Select the game object that you want to be grouped inside another
one. This will be the child.

2. Drag it to the other game object that will become the parent.

3. After that, the dragged game object is now parented to the other game
object.
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Parented game objects follow the parent's position, rotation, and scale.

Duplicating Game Objects

To create an exact copy of a game object, press Ctrl+D. The duplicate will have the same scale and
rotation as the original.
Your duplicate will also end up occupying the same space of the original object, so just move it
afterwards.

Exercise
Create a simple collection of game objects looking like the picture below. Make sure to parent all the
cylinders to the box.
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Introduction To Unity Components

In Unity, you can give your game objects any kind of properties. These properties are called
components. Components are the things that define what a game object is: what it has, and
how it behaves.
You've already encountered one of them: the “transform” component. This transform component
defines the position, rotation, and scale of a game object.
If you select a game object, the Inspector view will show all the
Information
components the selected game object has.
For moving or
To display a 3d shape, your game object also needs other components. To animated
define its shape to the physics engine, it also needs another different type of objects, most
physics engines don't use
component. the actual shape seen to
calculate the physics of a
In the game objects you've encountered, the component “Mesh Filter” displayed object. This is
specifies which 3d shape the game object uses. The component “Mesh because it would consume
Renderer” takes care of displaying that 3d shape. “Box Collider” specifies its too much computer
resources that way.
shape (as a box) to the physics engine.
Usually it takes a simpler
shape, like a box, or a
Interacting With The Physics: The Rigidbody Component capsule. That simple shape
would encompass the
Try this: In the Lesson 1 project, locate the game object called “Simple displayed shape to
compute the physics. Its
Cylinder”. Select it. Focus on it by pressing F. not going to be as accurate
Add a rigidbody component by going to the top menu and choosing as using the exact shape,
but as a result, it becomes
Component > Physics > Rigidbody. a lighter load on the
computer.
Now in the toolbar, you will see three buttons in the middle
like the picture to the left. These buttons control when to start
running your game.
The leftmost button starts the game. The middle button pauses your game. And the rightmost button
lets you advance the game by one step at a time.
Go ahead and press the leftmost button to start your game.
When your game is being run, Unity calls this “Play Mode”.
If you did everything correctly, you'll see the cylinder fall to the ground like a real world object. This is
what the rigidbody component does: it makes your game object react to the physics.
Now, to stop your game from running, click on the play button again.
When the game is not running, Unity calls this “Edit Mode”.

Removing A Component
In contrast, see what happens when you remove the rigidbody that you previously added. To remove
the rigidbody, look at the Inspector view and locate the rigidbody component. You'll see a gear icon at
its upper-right hand corner.
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Click on it and select “Remove Component” from the menu that appears.

Now start your game. You'll see that instead of falling, the cylinder remains floating in the air. Since
the rigidbody is not present, the cylinder isn't reacting like a real-world physical object anymore.

Adding Illumination: The Light Component

With the same cylinder selected, add a light component by choosing Component > Rendering > Light.
If you look at the light's properties in the Inspector, you'll see some interesting stuff.
Click on the white bar for the color. You'll see a color chooser dialog window. Choose any color you
want. You'll see that the Scene View automatically updates in real-time the color that you choose.

Illustration 16: Unity shows you the color changes in

real-time while you edit.

If you add a rigidbody once more, you'll find your game object has both a rigidbody and a light
component. Your game object would fall on the ground and shine a light at the same time.
This is the advantage of the component-based design that Unity makes use of. You can give any
game object any combination of components you want.
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Adding More Than One Light

Now what if you want to add two lights to your cylinder? Go ahead and try to add another one.
Unfortunately, you'll be greeted with an error:

This is because you can only add one Light component to each game object at most. This holds true
for most component types. Like what the error message says, you can't add the same component
to a single game object multiple times.
So how do we fix this? What we do is we create an invisible game object that will hold the
second light, and parent that invisible game object to the cylinder. Your cylinder can have as
many children game objects as you want it to.
In Unity, you can create invisible game objects by going to GameObject > Create Empty. You can also
press Ctrl + Shift + N.
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In Conclusion...
If you've come this far, congratulations! You're on your way in creating your own games with Unity.
You learned the basic gist of what Unity is, how to open a project, what game objects are all about
and how to move them around. You've learned what components are: the things that describe what a
game object is and how they behave.
In the next lesson, you'll learn more components that you can use, like terrain, basic visual effects like
particle effects and lens flares, and even music.
You'll be asked to create your own level and compile your application into an .exe file. You'll also learn
how to deploy your game to a web browser!